kālikopaniṣat

A short Upanishad of the Atharva recension, placed within the Saubhagya Kanda, and written in prose rather than in verse. It opens by spelling out a mantra in code, syllable by syllable, without once writing it plainly — the fortunate one tripled, the seed of desire, the sixth vowel of the sky joined to a point, the pair of mayas, and so on to the end. The meditation set after it is brief and exact: the colour of a fresh raincloud, heavy-breasted, with curved fangs, seated upon a corpse. What follows is a manual — the diagram of triangle and pentagon and nine angles, the worship of the limbs, the fruit of the japa, the rites of offering and who may undertake them — and it closes by extending the same method to the mantras of Tara, of Tripura and of Durga.